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Apple recently successfully won a jury verdict finding infringement against Motorola involving patent ‘381, which describes a rubber banding effect that indicates the end of a scrolling list or document has been hit by animating a stretchy, whimsical snap back effect. The tech giant previously won this case against Samsung and Motorola ended up gunning for the same patent. In the case against Samsung, Apple’s iOS head, Scott Forstall, testified that Steve Jobs was particularly annoyed to see other companies taking the invention and putting their name on it. Forstall mentioned that the patent was “just one of the things that Steve said [to Samsung], ‘here’s something we invented. Don’t – don’t copy it. Don’t steal it.’”

According to a report by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, instead of having a jury making the decision this time, the determination was made by a panel of German judges instead. Mueller wrote that Presiding Judge Dr. Peter Guntz of the Munich I Regional Court announced the determination of his panel that a variety of Motorola Mobility tablets and smartphones had all infringed upon Apple’s European patent EP2126678, the equivalent of U.S. ‘381. This gave Apple the option to enforce an injunction against the accused devices after posting a 25 million Euro bond. Apple can also post another 10 million Euro bond to “obligate Motorola to destroy any infringing material,” or force Motorola to do a recall if its posts another 10 million Euro bond. It was deemed that Motorola will also have to pay Apple damages for past infringement.

The rubber banding patent seems to be the third infringement Apple has won against Motorola in Germany, following a “slide to unlock” and photo gallery “flip to navigate” rulings. According to Mueller, the impact of Apple’s injunctions against Motorola in Germany is relatively minimal given the company’s limited market share in the country. One thing to note here though is that the “outcome of those cases show that Android has far bigger patent infringement problems than any piece of computer has ever had in the history of the industry, and this has many of Google’s hardware partners profoundly concerned.” In the meantime, Apple chalks up another victory over its competitors.